There are known in the prior art merchandising machines which are adapted to dispense beverages in response to the deposit of money in the machine and the actuation of a selection button. One of the subassemblies of each of these machines of the prior art is a cup dispensing unit which is adapted to deliver cups one by one from a supply. Most of these cup-delivery mechanisms of the prior art include a plurality of radially moveable elements which support a column of cups above a chute, or the like, leading to the delivery location at which the beverage is received by the customer. These cup-delivery devices include a ring which is adapted to be rotated through a given angular displacement to withdraw the radially moveable members to release one cup at a time from the column.
In addition to the cup-delivery mechanism described above, most of the machines of the prior art include a turret which is adapted to hold a plurality of columns of cups, one column of which is positioned over the delivery mechanism. When the cups in the one column are depleted a fresh column of cups moves into position over the cup delivery ring.
While these cup-delivery mechanisms of the prior art described hereinabove function fairly satisfactorily, they suffer from a number of defects. Most of them are relatively complicated in construction and hence somewhat uncertain in operation. A number of them require individual electromechanical elements for operating the cup-delivery mechanism and for operating the turret rotating mechanism. Many of the mechanisms are not adapted for interchangeable use with the different cup-delivery rings known in the prior art. They do not facilitate interchangeable use with turrets having different numbers of columns.